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Hey, everybody, welcome to the Daily Show Ears edition. This is Josh Johnson, correspond for the Daily Show. I am here with a contributor for The Daily Show, Charlemagne the God.
How you, Josh? What's up? My brother?
Not too much, you know, but you were you were here doing your piece. In my opinion on Kamala as a DEI hier.
Coordin the Republicans, Tim Walls, isn't the DEI Higher because to them, every letter in DEI actually stands for the same thing, black, black, black, which means the real DEI candidate is Kamala Harris.
She's a diversity higher.
Of course she's a DEI Higher.
She was AI and incompetent diversity higher.
This woman, this disaster, whose only qualification was having a vagina and the right skin color.
That's right, having dark skin in the vagina is an instant path to the Oval office.
All right.
If you don't believe me, take it up with Ronald Reagan's black pussy Listen, man, this argument is so stupid to me.
If being a woman or a minority with.
The golden ticket to get in the head in politics, then President Andrew Yang would have already done universal basic income and President Kanye West would have already changed the national anthem to gold digger. Okay, I mean the real jewel that I was trying to get across in the piece wasn't even the fact that Kama's a di higher, because we know she's not a Dei Hi. It's the fact that these media outlets, the CNNs, you know, the ABC News, the MSNBC, they take these silly racist attacks
and center them as the point of the debate. So you'll go on these shows and they'll be like, it's Kamala Dei Hire. Is Kamala Harris black? Why are we discussing this? Why is there a whole round table of people having this conversation. Those are editorial choices that these
news networks are making. Like it's a bunch of people who go in the room and they say, this is what we're going to center today, this is what we're gonna put on the lower third, this is what we're gonna have people discuss for the next hour.
And I just think that's a waste of time.
Talk about racial identity dominated the headlines.
The claims about Vice President Harris's identity will probably make the most headlines.
What do you mean these claims will make the most headlines CNN, MSNBC, ABC. You're the ones who decide what the headlines are.
These issues don't.
Make headlines unless you put it in the headline.
And none of these issues should be a headline.
If a guy came up to me on the street saying the vice president is a million, she can transform from Indian to black, I sint it. I'd be like, well, God bless you, sir, here's two dollars.
I gotta go.
Okay, it just feels like, okay, do you watch any combat sports?
You watch any like the UFCI?
Okay, it feels like when there's a fight night, And this is across all combat sports, so it's not necessarily a UFC. Thing happens in boxing a lot where they're trying to sell the fight, but one person clearly has more attributes than the other person, so then they will sell the fight by being like, then they'll do it
in the highlight reels. They'll be someone that's good everywhere, and then the other person they'll be like, and he kicks, ooh, he kicks, and then and here's the same clip of him kicking the same guy five times because they have fifteen clips the other guy doing all that stuff, but the other guy because they know that if they just say and then this person kind of sucks, you won't watch.
And that's what it feels like, is that, you know, I know I'm on TV show, but it feels like the News twenty four to seven has a season to get through, and so they use these things that are a little bit easy and they know will spark conversation and they know we'll get backlash and maybe lead to another piece that's easy for them to cover. So then they're just trying to get by.
But they don't have to do that.
They're the news, Like you turn on CNN because you want the news. You turn on MSNBC because you want the news. You turn on Fox when you want to be entertained, You turn on the Daily Show when you want to be entertained.
No, I think I think you're right.
I just think that they don't realize that because one, I mean, once once news and money become a sort of like energetic force where they're just like, I want to make sure as many people are watching as possible because of the ads, because of the sponsor numbers and everything. That is when you start to do some of the
more salacious stuff. And so it's like, I think that it's a test everything, Like even with Biden dropping out, it's a testament to the fact that they actually do know what's up outside of necessarily what's always presented on camera.
And part of that hypocrisy is later you'll see in a panel on CNN when when a CNN contributor is like, oh, I have all these people texting me from all around, from people in the campaign, from people, people, people, people, people all texting me that like, yeah, we're worried about Biden.
And it's like, okay, but where was all of that? Absolutely, and I think that it's also easy to just go over the conversation seems to be going so rather than the news treating itself like a trendsetter, which it is, it's trying to follow the trend of the people, which is what turns it into entertainment, which is how you end up getting stories like this.
Yeah, they're they're they're competing, well, number one, they're competing with all of these other, you know, outlets, and it's not even just other news networks.
Now, yeah, really social media.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, I said a long time ago that radio television and they'll never lead in breaking news stories ever again, because it seems like everything breaks on social media. Even when you look at President Biden when he dropped out, he didn't do like a State of the Union. Yeah, he didn't do like some official press release to CNN.
He just tweeted it.
Yeah, like like niggas, I'm out, like on Twitter. They like like that's crazy.
They also used to like actually get mad at you if you did something like that, like if you didn't break it with one of them, because there used to be you know, like just in general broadcasting, there used to be like the Big Three, the Big four, and if you if you went to one of the other ones, they get mad at you.
But they can't you're gonna get mad at Twitter. Yeah, you can't get mad at Twitter.
Like there's nobody.
Can you gonna get mad Twitter? It's not even a news a news platform. I mean it is, but it's not like one of the Big three. Like you said, there's nobody to get mad at. Only The only thing they can do is like yo, President Biden just tweeted he's out of the race. Whatever, we had planned for the next the rest of the day, it's over.
Yeah, yeah, I mean do you think then, okay, do you think that the DEI higher aspect of the attacks on Kamala like this is to me one of the biggest issues that Republicans are having right now in not knowing how to attack Kamala and now Tim Walls, is that it feels like Trump was very good at making everything a roast, and so now because that was what was winning elections and making elections close, it feels like
they cannot seem to get out of that. Do you think that that level of laziness around kind of just being racist is going to hurt them in the long run or do you think it plays to a certain base that needs to hear that.
I think the most interesting thing about having people like the Vice President Kamala Harris in this position, it's impossible for Donald Trump, our jd Vance or Damnity, any Republican to attack her without sounding racist and sexist, not.
Like when Hillary.
When Hillary was running, it was the same thing, but it was less because of the Clinton's history. Yeah, Clayton's legacy, so he had so many different things to point at. He can't really do that, you know, with with with the with the vice president, but that sounded like a
crazy conspiracy theorist. Like I think about it, He's done all of these different you know, interviews, you know, whether it was the at the NABJ or whether it was with Aiden Ross, and the only thing he can keep saying is that she pretended to be Indian one minute, pretends to be black another.
Minute, and that she's dumb. Yeah, he's not even attacking any policy. She was an age, she was in the Senate.
He hasn't brought he hasn't brought up anything from that because there's really not there's really nothing there.
And it also I think, you know, we'll we'll see when the actual election comes around. But it feels like most of the attacks on Kamala that they could bring up as a as a Republican campaign are things that would appeal to their own base.
Like the prosecutor.
She's a prosecutor, and so it's like she was tough on crime.
Yeah, right, And that's the narrative, the narrative she's tough on crime.
And if you actually dig into her record, you can see that she had a lot of progressive policies as well. It's like it's nuanced, right, she's a prosecutor, Like she wasn't the most progressive prosecutor in the country, but she wasn't throwing people under the jail one hundred miles file either.
Well, this is my thing with that though, because now this is like a this is a critique of I think a Democratic base is that, you know, one of the things that became an issue for her in the twenty twenty Democratic primary top cop. And it's like, I understand, I understand that there are a lot of Democrats that don't like the idea of cops, or don't like cops or what, but you do.
Like the law.
Yeah, who you gonna call when somebody breaks into your house? Ghostbusters? No, you're dialing nine one one.
Even past that though, even past just the regular instances of dealing with the police in a community. What Democrat didn't sell right when Donald Trump wasn't dieted when he had to take his mugshot when he was found guilty.
That's what the legal system does. So it's like, I understand that their aspects of lego system that are incredibly fractured, flawed and just straight up and just But then to put that on anybody who is a part of the system as a whole, no matter what they're doing, is like such a flawed logic that we don't need to do to ourselves.
Actually I agree with you to a certain extent.
But Donald Trump getting arrested actually pissed off more people, right, Like, if you already hated law enforcement, you probably ended up hating him more because he didn't get a mug shot at first in a lot of those cases, right, he didn't get put in handcuffs. We didn't see him have to do that per walk, right, So it's like, oh, so they do treat people differently. We literally saw a white privilege or presidential privilege, whatever you want to call it.
We saw it on full display. But it makes you dislike law enforcement even more because we know that y'all treating some yea than y'all would do us.
Yeah, especially when you don't really understand the reasoning.
You know.
One of the jokes that we made around here before the actual indictments and stuff like that is like, well, if he has to get like fingerprinted and has to get his mugshot taken, and let's say he has to post a bond, does the Secret Service have to sit in there with him? And it didn't come to any
of that, And I just I don't know. I think that there are lines of attack that I'm almost waiting for the Republicans to bring up that have to do with policy, But it does feel like they're so genuinely stuck in her being a black woman and being of Indian descent of all these things that are like not material to whether or not she can do the job because of what you said.
Literally, the things that the left right are progressives get upset about when it comes to the vice president, are even black people. The fact that she was a prosecutor, top cop who who allegedly locked up all these black men for weed, which isn't which isn't true.
Right, if you're on the right, you can't attack her for that because you love cops.
You love to see people prosecuted, and you love to see negroes getting locked up. So the only thing you can do is talk about her rate like a childless cat lady. She ain't got no kids, which also is a trip up because verry, because then she's been you know, co parenting with her husband.
The kids that he had from a former marriage and everything. So now anyone who is a step parent of any of any capacity is looking at jade Van saying stuff like that, or if Trump saying stuff like that, and they're like, does he mean me?
Yeah?
And if you're a woman, you know you're listening to them, and you're like, you don't know why we don't want to have kids. Maybe physically we're not capable, right, Maybe professionally I chose not to have them. Maybe I've had a couple of abortions in my life that I don't want to think about. So now I'm triggering. You done trigger me on all levels by just calling me a childless catlet and not even knowing what my circumstances.
Yeah, and also treating it like a like a really small slipper of the of the general like Electra as a whole. What it's like, the amount of people who are deciding to not have kids is so substantial, and I don't know, I'm I'm blown away by it because you would think that with all the trolling and with all of the like WrestleMania aspects of running a campaign, that they would have been like chomping at the bit to get whoever, But they really did plan to just keep the same line for Biden.
And that's it.
I saw it.
I saw Trump put on his truth social account how he wants he basically wants Biden to come back. It was unconstitutional how they removed him, and so he predicts that Biden is going to come back at the DNC convention and say no, I'm still I'm.
Like what that's wild?
And then also, I mean, these these are also sort of lines that I always found interesting that a lot of the the Republican narrative around Biden dropping out and then Kamala being the you know, presumptive nominee and everything they're telling it is that Biden was the hard line nominee. There was nothing that anybody could do about it. And so then them bringing Kamala sort of userps democracy or
something like that. But you were already okay with Kama being president, if you're okay with her being vice president because we have an old president.
Yes, and that's what Republicans are. Another thing that they're getting wrong, and maybe Democrats aren't doing a good enough job explaining it.
Maybe if these news outlets.
Were reporting actual news and not arguing about whether Kamala is black, they could explain it better. She was the vice president. He was a president that had to step down. Well, actually, maybe it's President Biden's fault because he had he didn't tell us why he stepped down. He should have maybe said I'm not physically capable of doing the job anymore, like I'm old, I'm sick, I cannot I can't do
another four years. Because if he does it like that, then the passing of the torch, you know, there's nothing Republicans can really say, like they make it seem like it was some type of coup from the Democrats and they pushed Joe Biden out.
I think what happened there is that, And I wish I wasn't being the cynical, but I think that if he was very plain in his in his language of why he was doing it, outside of the very sort of big ideas of passing the baton moving on to the next generation sort of thing, I think you immediately get like, whatever it is a twenty fifth amendment calls really yeah, because they already said that basically where they were like, if he's not fit to run, how is he fit to they?
I mean they already said that.
I get what you're saying. They would have been asking him to drop out.
Now they ask him to step down from the president, which would also be weird because it would just make Kamala president.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So it's like, I think everybody's wires are crossed because this whole election cycle has been so insane and like unprecedented.
Since twenty sixteen. Well, let me let me take that back.
We always say since twenty sixteen, No, since two thousand and eight, since they elected a black man as president of the United States of America, everything has been upside down.
I do feel like, Okay, to your point, Obama wins, and then they're just there are people in this country that are like never again, no matter what it takes. I think if Kamala wins the president after that has got to be like a dead lizard or something like. There's gonna have to be because almost like when you talk about jux'spositions, it's like there's Obama and then there's Trump, and then it's very clear the subtext of Trump is a response to Obama, which is mind blowing to me.
Step in one too, just because that person didn't win. But you think eight years of President Obama and then the next person in line was going to.
Be a woman.
Oh my god, the right was losing a mine. They was like, oh, hell no, where is the executive producer, a celebrity apprentice. We need somebody that's willing to come in here and be the most racist, you know, wild far right conservative we've ever seen. Let's just see if it works before I know, in my mind, I see him thinking, like, before we lose.
Our country, let's just throw this one last hell Mary, Yeah, and in what he caught it?
You know what this is?
This is also what's so wild to me about that line of thinking is that you know, I was, I was, uh talking to friends before we recorded. So you have Obama win, and then you have policies through Obama that actually improve people's lives in a way that is not necessarily the most glamorous, but in a way that is substantial.
Right, No, it is Obamacare is glamorous. To be able to go to the doctor and you don't be able to afford healthcare is be very glamorous.
That's okay, That's that's fair.
I guess what I mean by glamorous is what every politician no matter, no matter which way you lean, Republicans, Democrat, what every politician is up against in America at any given time is the fact that America sells you the idea that you can become rich. And it is very hard for any politician, any lawmaker, to circumvent the fact
that we're not all going to become rich. And so after a while, no matter when you become disillusion, you might become disillusion in the era of this guy this woman being president, right, and so now it's their fault that you're not rich, when actually what's happening is you have a very specific type of capitalism.
Right.
So, yes, Biden's the president, but Biden isn't actually in charge of the shrink flation that Lays decides to do in their potato chips. Biden can't unless he passes some sweeping law that guarantee you it would be fought, that tells them how many chips they.
Have to put in the bag.
It's not Biden's fault that your paycheck buys you chips that have less in bag than before.
Like inflation is coming down now, but you know, these greedy ass capitalist corporations are keeping the prices.
Up and So my thing is you look at something like that where Obama is improving the lives of citizens, whether it's through healthcare, whether it's through keeping credit card companies at Bay from like it just insane greedy fees or predatory behavior. But then you have Obama and maybe you like them, maybe you don't. But I think that what a lot of people missed is that Obama improved their lives to the point where they actually felt like it was fun to take a gamble on Trump.
You know what I mean.
If you are diabetic, right, and insulin is four hundred and fifty dollars a month, right, and you work at McDonald's, right, someone making campaign promises that are in any way involved with healthcare that can improve your life aren't just like a little game to you. This is like life and death.
Right.
But if everything's going pretty well and there's a guy that's like, I think I could make you you, like another fifty K a year or whatever, you're like, ah.
Are to your point a guy that says, here's twelve hundred dollars stimulus checks. You know a guy that a guy that's like, yo, he wasn't the guy, but you know, to your point, people. They'll forget what you did, they'll forget what you said, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. So that's why so many people reminisce about the Trump era. Yeah, because of those PPP loans and because of those stimulus checks, but they don't put everything in context.
Millions of people had to die, you.
Know what I'm saying, because of the way that that same president mishandled this pandemic.
Yeah, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. I guess I'm curious.
Then about your opinion on This is going to be a bit of a like wrap around question, But basically, you have Kammle's kickoff of her campaign, and within that campaign you have support from less than conventional advocates for Kamala, Right, So you have you have Quavo, Megan Stallion, all all these different people who are celebrities in their own right or influential in their own spaces coming out for common the I guess the dual question that I have is one,
do you think that any amount of support is positive? And to how would you sort of rate her start to her campaign so far?
I think she's for the most part she's been running a very good campaign. I think the problem with a lot of those campaigns, especially when you know the candidate is black, they try to make them look cool, right. They think they think being cool is going to you know, encourage young people to vote. It is going to encourage you know, black people of a certain age to vote.
And it's just like, No, she's a fifty nine year old, you know, Indian black woman who is very intelligent, who went to Howard, who's an aka, who has all of his history, and the Toorney General as the Senate.
Just let her be I like seeing.
You know, the Meganistings and the Quabos are part of the process. But how about elevate them? And what I mean what I say when I elevate them For me, they elevated Quabo and what I mean by that is Kamonland Quabo have sat down and had conversations about gun violence before. So to have Quabo come out in Atlanta and speak, you know, to gun violence because of you know how we lost take off God Bless the dead.
That's great.
What they should have done with Megan instead of having her perform, just have her come out and speak to women being in control of their bodies. Speak to women, you know, losing their reproductive rights because of you know, of the GOP and the decisions that the Supreme Court made, Like write her something to talk about, like she's the woman that wrote body YadA YadA, YadA YadA, And if we're trying to protect you know, women's rights and you know we want women to have control of their bodies,
let her come speak to that. It's just it's just the performance and the ass shaken that threw everybody off because I do believe, yeah I wouldn't. That's not something I want to see that Like at for Kamala Harris, because she is the first black woman you know, and you already see how they're they're you already see what they're doing to her, Like you can go on Instagram right now and it'll be all these AI memes of Kamala Harris. You know, uh, head on, delicious body, you
know what I mean. I I've seen pictures of Kamala Harris. You know, they got her in AI, got her in bikinis, leaning over desk, like you already know how they're treating her. So let's let let's just not do that for her.
I don't.
I don't. I don't necessarily care, you know, either way about Megan the stallion, you know, being out there dancing. I don't think that that hurt as much as social media tried to make it seem like it did. But I would I would have wanted the Harris campaign to elevate Megan.
Megan's a small woman.
Megan went to college, like you know, let Megan come out there and like I said, speak to you know, women being in control of their bodies and speak the you know, women's reproductive rights.
That's what I would have did.
So the reason that I ask about do you think any amount of support is positive is because I've noticed a thing now with like I said, you know, a Trump rally or a Trump support feels very like wrestling energy. Like I don't know if you watch wrestling when you were little, but it's the same, it's the same general vibe.
And what I've noticed worked. Yes, yes, yes, I didn't.
Even realize hug Hogan was talking about getting closing the borders. I didn't even realize he was talking about shipping Mexicans back. I just got caught up in what are you going to do? Because that's a trigger for me.
Yeah, my kid, like I was my in.
A child is like yeah, howk Yeah, what are you going to do when Trump and man you're like.
Whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. Yeah, No that's not I didn't know we were going there.
Yeah.
I guess My thing is that no matter how obscure silly, actually like terrifying, the things that the people come out and say, or who the people are that support Trump, it's always seems to be a sort of boost and a leveling up for him, Whereas I think a lot of the support that and you have this with several
Democratic campaigns. But do you do you think that that level support almost seeming like it's a like it's a negative, is an invention by the Democrats unto themselves because you know that like if someone's gonna be racist, they're gonna be racist. But do you think that playing up the like no, we have to get the people playing defense is what's hurting or do you think that the support actually hurts?
Does that make sense what I'm saying.
I get what you're saying.
I think the left just stands on a moral high ground that's not sustainable. Like the left has all of these purity tests that it's impossible for any human in the past. Meanwhile, Republicans are like effet, Like literally you saw your you saw on social media people upset. You know that making the stallion was shaking her ass. But who are those people that were upset?
Well, nobody.
I didn't see nobody on the well, people on the right were making what we're saying, things like she needs rappers to get a crowd, but they aren't necessarily, you know, doing this respectability politics thing that you see a lot of people on the left do.
And I do think that.
I think when you're running a presidential campaign, I look at it as promoting the party.
And I used to promote parties back in the day.
And when you promote parties, I would have a bunch of flyers, and I would put flyers everywhere.
I wouldn't just go target my audience with the flyers.
I would actually go places with those flyers that my audience may not necessarily have been. Why, Because let's just say, let's just say my target audience is people at the mall, but across the street from that mall is a church or are a synagogue. I'm serious. I would go put the flyers at the church. I'm gonna put the flyers
at the synagogue. Why because even if that person doesn't know who the hell I am or who the hell this promotional company is, they're gonna pick that flyer up and say, well, who the fuck is Concrete Guerrilla Entertainment? And why do they have they thrown all these flyers around and they're having a party on such and such date.
So people are just talking, and that's really what you want.
You just want as many people talking about something as possible, and you just hope that you.
Get the word out to as many people as possible.
If you get it to a million people, if one hundred thousand people show up, great, And that's how I look at politics. If you're running for the president, you should sit in front of as many people as possible.
You should have as many interviews as possible.
You should go meet people where they are and talk to as many different audiences as possible. And let's just say you talk to If you just say you talk to ten million people during an election cycle, you know, if two or three million of them come.
Out to vote for you, that's great.
So I have no problem with you know, being in front of as many diverse audiences as possible. I think all politicians should meet people where they are, because you never know who a potential voter is.
So you mentioned meeting people where they are. I want to get a sense from you, then of we get out of the sort of excitement, surprise and honeymoon of Kamma being in the race and everything, and it gets closer and closer than November, and it really is now Common's policies versus Trump's policies. What do you think some of the things that Kamma can do to win over any swing voters.
I don't even think that we're in the honeymoon phase.
The honeymoon phase comes after she gets selected, right I think right now we're just in a phase of, oh shoot, I'm actually energized. A lot of us haven't felt like this since two thousand and eight. A lot of us haven't felt like this since twenty twelve. Yeah, you know, I can't sit here and say Hillary bought energy. Hillary felt like establishment institutional politician that President Obama is saying, Hey, this is who we want you to vote for more
than qualified. But I can't sit here and say she energized people. The Vice president has energized people, and we haven't had any energy since twenty sixteen. I didn't vote for President Biden in twenty twenty. I voted for the Vice president, Kamala Harris. I'm on record saying that, like it wasn't until she got on the ticket to where I was like, all right, I feel comfortable, you know, you know, voting for the person who created the nineteen ninety four crime.
But like that's literally what my mentality was.
But I think what we're feeling now is just the energy that we haven't felt before. And I don't think this goes away. I think that this is going to go up until election day. Don't get me wrong. There's gonna be upstairs, gonna be downs. I mean, she still hasn't sat down and you know, a did an interview with anybody yet, right, She still hasn't had an official press conference yet, so you never know how those things
can go. I'm sure that she'll say something in an interview that people aren't gonna like, they're gonna pick apart, but that's still our candidate.
Yea, Yeah.
I think what you're feeling right now is energy, and I think what she needed to do is just keep doing She's what she's doing, right, Like you just said, it's a policy thing at this point, like this is my issues, this is my agenda.
That's another thing she hasn't done yet either. See.
I can speak to some of the things that the vice president has done because I was on the campaign trail with her in twenty twenty. I was doing my research to her, you know, when she was an attorney general in California. I know about things like the back on Track program, you know, I know what her economic plans are. Even as vice president. I paid attention when she gave two hundred and eighty five million dollars, you know, to mental health initiatives to help increase the amount of
mental health professionals. Right, because I'm a mental health advocac so I pay attention to stuff like that. But for people who don't know her, when they go to her website, she doesn't have a plan for what she wants to do for the next four years.
Where is that plan?
But I just think she just needs to keep telling people what she planned to do. I think folks will get to know her later.
Okay, So then do you think that Trump's gonna win over some of those swing voters or do you know because I My only reason that I asked the question is because it felt like he was riding high off of Biden. And then it feels like ever since, there's been a disconnect. It's like when you watch a stand up right, and because I'm you know, I work at
the show, I've watched Trump rallies. I've watched Trump like general speeches at sea pack stuff like that, and it always felt like he was connected, even when he was being weird or even when he was going off script and everything, it felt like he was connecting with the sort of moment that he was having. Yeah, and I feel like more often than not every time I see him now, maybe it's because he's reaching out to social
socials more than ever. So he's going to streamers, he's going to YouTubers and stuff, and maybe that's not.
Exactly his wheelhouse.
That's smart, it is smart, but I guess I'm I'm like you saw the Aiden Ross thing and everything, It's like, I'm smart. It felt like a bad move to me because it felt more awkward throughout than it did, like, oh, this is dude is putting himself in front of new people. It's like if you're putting yourself in front of new people and it's not on the best foot.
Yeah, but that audience loved it because you know Aiden Ross, he's got skin in that game already. Like Aiden Ross had Nick Fuentez on his podcast before, Like I've heard, you know, Aiden Ross speak.
Highly of Trump before.
So even the way that it was set up, like Trump walks in many men's playing. All the guys in the room are dressed like Trump with the red tie. They're all wearing Maga hats. And it wasn't like Aiden was asking bad questions, right, So let's just say Aiden Ross, who is a very influential person, whether you like it or not. Yeah.
Yeah.
I think at one point he had like four hundred thousand and a half a million people watching the scream. I don't know what the highest number it got to, but I know when it first started it had like four hundred thousand, five hundred thousand.
Yo.
If fifty thousand of those people decided to go out there and register the vote and vote for Trump, that's a win.
I see, Liken't I don't have a problem.
And I think his Aiden's demo was like thirteen to twenty four there's a new voter turning eighteen every day. Yeah, so he went and sat in front of a bunch of young, impressionable people who may just feel like, you know what, I like that guy. He's sitting there kicking it with my dude Aiden. He's talking about young thug. You know, he's saying how we need to close the borders put more money in our pocket. I can see how that could be intriguing to somebody who really isn't looking under the hood.
I see, you know.
So this is something I think about a lot when I talk to about or two other black people with it is there are black people who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen.
I know someone who got some friends who did who do.
Not want to vote for him again. And there is a sense, though, how do you find the sort of advice towards reconciliation in that way, because then, and there are some black people now who vote for Hillary then vote for Biden and or voting for Kamala that just are like, what's wrong with you?
How could you ever? Blah blah blah.
And I think there are people out there that are like, look, I am doing well, I'm maybe rich. I think this is the person that's going to keep me rich. I'm voting this way, right, And so if someone's whole motivator is money in a sense, then I'm not saying fault as in I would do the same thing. But I get why they they vote the way they do because they're very clear about their intentions.
And those are people, to me who have not looked under the hood, because being black and rich in a country that's under authoritarian rule is not gonna fait well for you. It's really just that simple. Being black enrich in a country that's under authoritarian rule is not gonna.
Fait well for you.
And I don't know any other way to explain it to people other than to tell them to ask at GBT or Google what is authoritarian rule? And then you might understand, Like you know, when you why would you want to live in a country where you have a man saying he wants to give police total immunity, federal immunity.
What are we doing, like, black man, black woman, what are you doing? Like that alone?
But as much as we talked about it earlier in the conversation, but as much as we like to scream after police and that's what you that's what you want.
Like, how you think that's gonna fare for you in this society?
Like and in me is a media personality, you as a comedian, as a as a TV personality, Like this guy already says he's going to attack the press. He already said it's gonna be consequences and repercussions for people who you know, have things to say about him.
He sued.
Bill Maher threatened to sue Lord Michaels like everything that Donald.
Trump, uh, you know, wants to do, he says out loud. Yeah, for sure, we all just twiddle our thumbs and go on about our way like like it's just talk.
And so do you think, I mean, what do you say?
I'm not asking you to speak for anyone right now, but I guess, like, what do you say to those friends who may be voted for him the first time that either don't want to vote for him again or maybe are voting for him again, Like what where do you find their heads are at?
I think right now, at least, I'm just speaking from some of the people that I know, they really are just fed up with government period, and they're still caught up in that whole drain the swamp thing, like they still look at him as an outsider who's here to shake up government.
And there is, you know, there is something to I'm not saying. This is the reason.
There is something to a person that the media is always persecuting, right, Like there is something to watching the media. Not even want to say persecuting, because a lot of times the media is just telling the truth about him. Most of the times the media tell they did, they're saying what he did. So when you there are people out here who just root for the bad guy, like that's what this is. American just ain't just a black thing.
No, No, I'm with him.
America roots for the bad guy.
No, like since day one, since cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians like the people robbing the train, the stage coaches.
Like they root for the bad guy. And I think some people are just caught up and rooting for the.
Bad guy, gotcha. Yeah, I mean I do think that there's there are some logic loops that don't close.
For the logic.
But yeah, that's why, No, that's fair, that's why.
Like we're literally sitting here trying to make h you know, logic out of the elogical. My thing is those are the times where I just have to step back and just realize that some people are just looking at it as politics, even though if you are really paying attention, you know how high the stakes are. But the Democrats are blame for a lot of that because the Democrats demonize Republicans all the time like that. I can't think of one Republican candidate in my lifetime who hasn't been demonized.
Maybe maybe John McCain. John McCain might have been the only one who they didn't like demonize.
I do think that the threat to democracy thing is something that has been sort of like on the table and mentioned in every election for you know what feels like, for what feels like the past three and eventually even if something is true, right, it's like when a country's at war, right, When a country's at war, war is terrifying, right. But when you talk to people who live through war, they're like, weirdly chill about it to a certain degree.
They obviously have horror stories and they've obviously been traumatized. I'm not like trivializing war. I'm saying, like, when you talk to these people who are from a place that's either war torn or was going through war when they were younger, and they're like, yeah, but after a while,
you get you go through your day. And that's how I feel about the threat to democracy line, where it's like, look, I genuinely believe that Trump wants to do things, and as you say, has said out loud, he plans to do things if he wins that are not democratic. Right, So the threat to democracy thing is real.
He already led an attempted to cool with his country. Yeah, we watched it.
It's so many things that he's done that we don't pay it. He led an attempted coup of this country. He literally said we should suspend spends the constitution to overthrow the results of an election.
Yeah, said this, But I think that my thing is the same way. When someone's living through sort of war torn conditions and eventually they're like, well, I have to eat, I have to find some sort of work to provide for my family. You have to quote unquote get on with your life. I think that maybe that that is the only personal failing is the wrong word because it
makes it seem final. But one of the things that I think Democrats could do better is appeal to that notion of threat to democracy without making it seem like it's the only thing that they need to say.
Oh yeah, they can't just speak. You're absolutely right.
They're always trying to make their base vote out of fee, and right now people are like, I'm tired of voting out of fear. You got to give me an actual, real reason to vote. People want tangible things, so on top, I think you got to do two things right. For the people who understand why this guy is a threat to democracy, lay that out for him. For the people who want tangibles, lay that out for him too, because the reality is all of them. At some point, it'll
be an intersectionality of it all. Yes, you know and so, but I don't know if they do a good enough job of really doing either, or like even now with this whole just labeling Trump and JD Vance weird, you're understating, you're understating the threat.
It's definitely understanding the threat. It is like super accurate. Though they're just things that Trump has said mid rally, Like he'll be talking about immigration and then he's talking about sharks, and I'm like, I don't know where we are anymore.
I'm with that, But yes, the shark thing is weird y, Project twenty twenty five is more than weird.
No, that's fair.
Putting three three conservative judges that he appointed on the Supreme Court.
That got rid of that abolished Roe v.
Wade, that you know, made it, made given presidential immunity, the way he can commit crimes, that made it legal for elected officials to take brides, that's more than weird.
But do you think I guess this is my thing, and this is my general question to you there is that do you think that the American public as a whole can handle more than one piece of messaging at a time, Because I think that both things are things that I would worry about. So Project twenty twenty five worries me not as much, but sort of on the level with wait, is this guy even here right now?
Real court concerns me more than Project twenty twenty five.
Yeah, So I think that, like, maybe what we're having here is not just a sort of oh, the Democrats could do better messaging on what the threats are or what the benefits are of electing a Democrat. I do think that we may have a general problem with us as an electing body that we can't seem to hold on to more than one thing for more than a certain amount of time.
I agree with you, And what I would say to that is, when you're a presidential candidate, you can't look at the American people as just a monolithic thing. Because one thing that I think Trump does good and I want the Democrats to start doing, is you do have to say a whole bunch of things, because when you say a whole bunch of things, you're different things are
hitting with different people. Like you just said, Project twenty twenty five may not hit with you, right, but the Supreme Court stuff might right, police community might hit with you, but you know something else he did may not.
So it's just like you gotta put everything out there.
You got to put everything on the table and just let people what resonates with them, like what really triggers them, what hits them to say, Oh no, we got to make sure this dude don't ever get back in the White House.
Yeah, we'll be back right after this.
Now, do you think then, because I because I do agree with what you're saying about messaging and about how I think it's important, especially with the energy because the energy is new. We haven't had it for a while, and I think with that energy now it can be about here's what I'm gonna do, and here are my
sets of policies. But do you think that, because of the state that we're in, opposing Republican policies has been a platform or do you think that's still not good enough because because to a certain degree, I agree with you that so much of voting, it feels like for the past however long has really been about keeping Republicans out, more so than even bringing Biden in or anything. But when I I guess that's my general question is like, Okay, the Republicans want to do all these things.
I don't want any of those things. Is that enough of a platform for a candidate?
No, you still have to tell, you know, those individuals what you plan to do for them. Like you know, if you if you and your girl are going out and you know there's one restaurant and she's like, I don't like that restaurant. That restaurant not for me, and you're like, yeah, it's not for me neither. She's still hungry. Sure, sure, you still got to go somewhere. You know what I'm saying you got to put some other options on the table.
You gotta and if there is another option, right, you got to be like, well, we should go here, and and here's the reason why not just because you're hungry. You're gonna want to go here, because the fried pickles are amazing. They got the greatest desserts. Like, you gotta lay it out as to why you should go there. Whenever you ask about anything in life, restaurants, vacation places.
And you're asking, so what's there? Sure?
Sure, and they gotta tell you what's there. So that's what Democrats have to start doing. We're here, yeah, but this is our menu.
So I also want to get your thoughts on this because it's really something that we struggle with after every election. You know, I've said this before. People that know me will probably get sick of me saying this. But any campaign is the sort of sexting phase of the relationship you're having with your candidate. Right Ooh, I'm gonna come over there, I'm gonna do all, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. You know that you don't have the hip strength or the knee mobility to do what
you're saying, but I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this right now we're actually at your place and it's time, right, And then they're like, it's gonna be pretty regular. I got,
I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna do my best, right. But this is my thing, is how many campaign promises knowing that there's checks and balances, knowing that there's courts, Knowing that there are politically appointed people that have positions for either for life or as long as they run unopposed, or as long as no one challenges them in any way or any of their any of their actions aren't necessarily uncovered. How much of the promises that a politician
makes should their constituents expect them to fulfill? Because I think there's something like with Biden's student loan forgiveness right where Biden keeps trying to forgive more than he's allowed to forgive by either the Supreme Court or by federal judges. Then he will find a different way to forgive a little less, but he is chipping away at that promise. But it's a thing that's been brought to me as him not fulfilling his promise.
Right. Well, I think It's two things to that, right, If I'm a politician, all politicians really are able to do is tell us what they want to do, literally, like they tell us what they want to do. Now, if they want to stay in office, they'll go in there and do those do those things.
I think as voters we should expect him to.
Do all of it, okay, right, And if they don't get it all done, I want to see you at least trying like. I want to see you trying like hard. I want to constantly see you trying to pass this bill and they're getting, you know, shot down for whatever reason. I want to see you doing executive orders. I want to see you just trying to do these things that
you said you were going to do. That's why I think the student loan thing hit so well, because when he was getting blocked right by Congress in the Senate, he would go to an executive order, he would circumvent him.
Right.
I respect that at least you're trying to get something done, right, or at least you're using whatever power you have to do something.
That's all I expect.
I just expect you to try, you know, and and when you do get something done, fantastic creat Thank you, but at least try because you like to your point, you can't just keep you know, selling me a dream every single time, especially after you donet hit. Yeah, you don't hit now I know what everything I'm here because I clearly like it, But could you at least do something to me and not make me feel like a whole do something for me?
So so I off of Biden.
There is something that's that's been really big for me. Biden's not gonna run again. His political career, as we know it is over Rightly, he could still have one of the most consequential presidencies ever because now he's beholden to nothing and no one seemingly right because he doesn't need anything else. He's not running again. So what would you like to see Biden do? Because this is the thing that people wish that they had the first time
that they run. Whenever they run, they're talking like, Hey, I won't take anybody's money, I won't be beholding anybody. Nobody can touch me, hold me back anything. I'm here for you, the people. Biden actually can do all of that right now instead of I'm not even saying he's doing this, but I'm saying, we the public expect him to sulk and feel sorry for himself and everything, because it's an embarrassing thing to have to drop out of a race and stuff.
But he's still the president.
I'm glad he stepped down. You know, That's something I was calling for for a long time. But I think what President Biden can do, you know, for his remaining time in office, and he's starting to do it a little bit, raise hell about that Supreme Court. Like literally, you know, you say you want to put reforms on the Supreme Court. I want to see him raising hell about the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court is no
longer a legitimate institution. And my biggest fear, and you know, I said it, you know, a little bit on the you know, in my opinion piece on the show this week. What happens in November, vice President wins the election all around the country. You have all of these different states that refuse to certify the results of the election, right, and then Donald Trump challenges the results of the election.
It goes to the Supreme Court. In light of all the Supreme Court's recent rulings, they just made this a king. What makes us believe the Supreme Court would not overturn the results of that election. So I would like to see President Biden raising a hell about that over the
next few months. I would he already said that, you know, he wants to put a reforms, but I need the rhetoric to be you know, we gotta start talking about expanding the court, like literally, I think that he really needs to be spending all his remaining energy on talking about how illegitimate this court is. And by the way, and he's old, so he's seen a lot of different variations of the court. He knows when the court is corrupt.
Or just taking away the lifetime appointment, you know what I mean.
But that's something that was part of the reform.
I think it's eighteen years I think they said, oh, okay, that's something he's proposing.
Yeah, But my whole point is I would like to see him doing that, you know.
For his remaining time in office, the last ninety days, because that might be the biggest hurdle. You know, we keep talking about, you know, the things standing in the way of keeping Trump out of the White House is Vice President Kamala Haads and Tim Wallas.
Maybe not that might not be the biggest that might not be the thing.
The only thing I would the only thing to sort of doubtse a little bit of the flame of that fear is that we're going from in this situation, Abiden to Harris, which then at least the president in that scenario, right, I mean, if you.
Want, if you're going to have a constitutional crisis, you wanted while Democrats are in office.
But you know, like like I said, he will still challenge it.
And I have no doubt in my mind that his cronies all around the country will refuse to certified the results of the election.
He'll challenge it.
It'll go to the Supreme Court, and I have no reason to believe they wouldn't overturn it. Yeah, I have no reason to believe that they would.
Yeah. And that's gonna say.
Everybody keep saying that the thing that's going to keep Trump out of the White House is Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walls. Those are the things that are going to keep them out of I mean, keep keep Trump out of the White House. But what is going to be the thing to keep them out?
You know what I'm saying?
If they win, Even if they win, there's mechanisms in place that can keep them out. Republicans got this shit fixed.
In a real, real, real way.
They got it to where it's either two results of elections they win, or this shit wasn't real.
It was fake, it was rigged.
And I have no reason to believe that they are not going to push the gas on that in November. And and everybody that's listening to my voice right now, none of y'all should be surprised when this happens.
Just be prepared.
Yeah, I get you, charle Man. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the conversation. Yes, very much, appreciate you. I look forward to the next time I can hear your opinion, my may Thank you. Be sure to pick up Get Honest or Die Lning Why Small Talk Sucks, available wherever you get your books, and The Breakfast Club airs weekday mornings on New York's Power one oh five point one and on iHeartRadio. Thank you for listening to The Day Show Ears edition. We'll see you next time.
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